shop vac as a pond tool

[rexford]

hey gang,

I have been tooling around in all the helpful links and something that comes up
from time to time is using a shop vac to clean the pond. For the life of me I just
can not picture this from either a functioning or safety standpoint. My shop vac
has a 7 gallon catch basin and I expect if I tried to put the nozzle in my pond it
would probably fill up before reaching the bottom. Just to prove I am not a total
idiot I guess I could turn it on once the nozzle is at the bottom but then again it
seems the volume it could hold would quickly be met. Could someone please
fill in the blanks for this Newb?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[addy1]

I use mine, 16 gallon rigid, on my small ponds, it is does not pull enough for my large pond. I have the sears attachment that pumps it out when it gets full, no need to tip. The attachment is put on where the drain is.
Usually turn it on when the nozzle is where I want to clean.

 

[ididntdoit99]

Man rexford, I dont know what kind of shop vac you have, but you think it will suck up 7 gallons in the 10 second it takes to push the tube 4 feet down into the water? I nned to get me a super vac like that!!!

Anyways... I use a (well I guess I wouldn't say use, I haven't touched it in ages) small 5 gallon shop vac that I bought specially for the pond. I cut a hole near the bottom and attached a garden hose spigot. I suck up junk until its full, then I shut it off and open the spigot and let the water drain back into the pond leaving the leaves and muck in the vac. works okay... but its slow going, Wish I could suck up water and let it drain at the same time.

 

[addy1]

Darn vacuums just don't work that way lol

 

[ididntdoit99]

Yeah, water wont just drain out of a VACUUM, I wonder why? gotta be some science to it. :regular_waving_emot

 

[Jas2Cats]

I use my old pool filter pump to clean out the pond. It was from one of those Intex pools. I just have both hoses in the pond and the water goes right back in. I did have to rig a screen on the sucking end to keep from sucking up my fish. I don't know why, but, they are enamored with vacuuming.